Claypaky Sharpy Plus Aquas hit the road again with Metallica’s M72 World Tour

Metallica’s ongoing “M72 World Tour” has begun playing its 2024 dates with the lighting design that Rob Koenig introduced last year featuring 48 Claypaky Sharpy Plus Aqua IP66-rated beam/spot fixtures.

The tour maintains an upgraded in-the- round stage design by Creative Director/Production Designer Dan Braun, which relocates the coveted audience "Snake Pit" to the center of a ring-shaped stage surrounded by eight towers, each topped by LED video cylinders.

“This is the first time that Metallica has performed in the round for a stadium tour,” says Lighting Designer Koenig, who heads LA-based Ignition Show Design. In looking for the right fixture to wrap around the tour’s ring-shaped stage, he discovered that the Claypaky Sharpy Plus Aqua offered the zoom range he needed along with the ability to go from a narrow beam to a wide zoom. “The fixtures give us a lot of flexibility from performing aerial effects to throwing them back onto the band and painting the band with light and gobos,” Koenig says.

He positioned 48 Sharpy Plus Aquas, supplied by longtime Metallica lighting vendor Premier

Global Productions in Nashville, around the outer edge of the ring where they are used selectively for different numbers. For example, they act as straight up beams for “The Day That Never Comes,” while they replicate the look of the towers’ video content for “If Darkness Had a Son” with a wide zoom and animation wheel elements across the band. “The Sharpy Plus Aquas have performed admirably. They have been super-low maintenance, which is very important for this tour since every light in the rig has to be touched because there is no traditional truss,” reports Koenig. He also cites the fixtures’ IP66 rating - a key factor since most of the stadium shows this year are open air.

claypaky.com

Photo © Ralph Larmann